1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improved building materials made from recycled plastic waste materials and/or freshly or newly produced plastic materials for the construction or building industry, and also to building components or elements made using the improved building materials and also to methods of making a building material from recycled plastic waste materials and/or freshly or newly produced plastic materials for a particular application with special properties.
2. Prior Art
Especially since building materials are now increasingly required to be environmentally friendly, building materials that comply with different legal requirements must be used in the building industry. These materials may include newly or freshly produced plastic materials, as well as of recycled plastic materials, which are made from plastic waste. It is also important that the waste that is produced during construction is environmentally friendly and can be reused. In addition, demolition material that comes into existence from the above-mentioned building materials should be both environmentally friendly and reusable for redevelopment.
Currently, only partial solutions or individual building materials could be developed that satisfy these requirements. The currently used building materials, which are used, for example, as balance material, insulation material and sound absorbing material, as well as for the production of building elements and buildings, are expensive in their production and treatment and only a small percentage of these materials are reusable.
There are several other disadvantages of current building materials, such as balance materials, barrier materials and insulation materials, used for construction of building elements and buildings. They often consist of a mineral or chemical raw material, that requires considerable engineering effort to prepare, break down or dispose of, and that is expensive to make. In addition, these building materials burden the environment when the building is renovated or demolished. Also of importance is the fact that the demolition material causes additional expenses during the waste disposal or recycling.
There are even more disadvantages. Current building materials are not always pourable, are often not in accordance with the required fire codes and are not always waterproof or weatherproof. In addition, they are often provided with unhealthy binders and they have to be adjusted to fit the required geometrical dimensions.
According to the state of the art building materials made of plastic material are freshly or newly produced from raw materials for each individual application. For example, German patent, DE 42 02 431 C2 describes a method and apparatus for making a lightweight aggregate material with a comparatively hard surface for plaster, concrete, mineral or plastic bonded insulating panels as well as insulating material for filling, in which expanded polystyrene is comminuted, fractionated and heated or treated thermally. This process is expensive, the material is combustible and not universally usable and plastic waste from it cannot be used for construction.
In addition, the Swiss patent CH 622,049 describes a granulated material for use as a filler for drainage packing, which consists of a core of a higher specific gravity than its outer surface layer or jacket. The production and engineering costs for this granulated material are high. It is not possible to use it in all for construction engineering applications above and under the earth. Besides, it is not possible to produce it out of waste plastics and it is difficult to recycle.
In the German patent DE-G 94 00 024.7 building materials, such as concrete, mortar, flooring plaster and fillers, are described in which a granulate made of plastic material is used as an added aggregate. This granulate can be made from waste plastics by milling and then again extruding. This method requires a lot of energy and is also very expensive. This granulate can only be used in concrete and mortar, and the fabrication of building components or buildings from this material is not possible.